Why you should feed your child dried fruits & nuts

3 to 7 years

Created by
Puja Sharma Vasisht
Updated on Mar 29, 2017

Once the child starts going to school, the mother’s concern would now be on how she can increase the concentration and learning skills of her child and the right food here plays a critical role. One of the best ways is to make them have nuts, dried fruits and seeds in their daily diet. These not only provide healthy fats and proteins, but also micronutrients that play an important role in boosting memory and immunity of the child. Here we give you a lowdown on nuts and dried fruits, plus interesting ideas to include them in your child’s diet.

Nuts
This includes healthy nuts such as almonds, walnuts, peanuts, pine nuts, and pistachios etc.

Benefits – Daily consumption of nuts contributes significantly to the child’s vitamin E, omega-3 fats, fiber and protein requirement. Nuts are also a good source of nutrients like zinc, iron, calcium and B-complex vitamins. These nutrients help build up a child’s immunity, concentration and general health. If from the early childhood the habit of nut consumption is established, it would help keep cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar levels in control which will help in their adult lives.

Watch outs- Studies suggest that nuts may trigger severe allergic reactions in some children, so you need to be a bit watchful when feeding your child these. This would include hidden nuts in products like chocolates, breakfast cereals, namkeens, spreads etc. Nuts are also dense source of energy and particularly rich in fats. Excessive consumption, along with other high calories foods, may lead to weight gain.

How to add to the daily diet- These can be given simply as snacks (trail mix) or in powdered form. The powdered form can be practically added to all the recipes your child consumes like cereals, gravies, chapattis, dals, soups, salads, porridge, pulao, sandwich, pizza, pasta etc.

Benefits- Not only are these a dense source of energy but also are rich in fiber, potassium, iron and antioxidants like polyphenols. These nutrients together have a large spectrum of health benefits and are particularly beneficial in boosting the immunity of your child.

Watchouts- Since these are rich in calories and particularly sugars, too much consumption of these is not advised as it may lead to dental caries in the child.

How to add to the daily diet- these can be given to your child to snack on. They can also be added to their breakfast cereals, porridge, sandwich, pasta etc.You can soak a handful of any one or mixed dried fruit over night. This can be then mashed to a paste. This can be used as a spread on their bread/chapatti. This spread can also be used in dips/chutneys for their snacks like fries, fritters, pakoras, cutlets etc.

Seeds
This includes flaxseeds, sesame, pumpkin, sunflower, and chia seeds.

Benefits- These seeds help provide certain vital nutrients which are required for the healthy brain and physical development of your child. These are proteins, essential fatty acids like omega-3 and 6, vitamin E, calcium, iron, zinc etc.

Watchouts- You need to check them for their freshness(by tasting) as the high oil content of these seeds make them prone to rancidity.

How to add to daily diet- Roast and powder these. Now, use it any dough, curry, soup, cereals, porridge and salads. You can also add these to dips, sandwich spreads or chutneys.

if Ur kids like curd mix dry fruits in curd and try giving her you can even add raisins in that... with that you can even add some fruits.. give the child yoghurt instead curd. yoghurt has more fats ...

almonds walnuts are good for everyone including elders... kids can eat all the nuts.. yes nuts are very useful for kids as they are also called super food.. it's good because eating that you get almost everything body requires for growth... so make sure instead giving junk snacks trying giving Ur kids nuts which they like.. even in school snacks you can give them..

my child hima she likes to only curd. only curd means in puri,dosa,idlly,or it may be any Tiffin. she eat with curd. and don't like to eat vegetables supplements only curd only curd atlast she don't like chocolates also. can u help me out .

how do we decide how much of dried fruits can we give.
my daughter is obese n has sweet tooth also.
I restrain her from sweets but compensate it with dates , raisins, cranberries.
what should be the right amount of these

wow very good one and happy to tell in my Aplus healthy food as indrouced all the above mentioned food in my products ....anyone interested pls reach me ...I have done very deliouse food products n yet very healthy for kids... any quires reach me at 9886720903

Hi Puja, My son who is 6 year old is totally against having these nuts. I know that i can mix and include it in various other forms of food which he takes. Can you pls suggest me some recipes i can start giving to my son so he gets the essential nutrients from these nuts.